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First published online November 28, 2008
Journal of Experimental Biology 211, 3908-3914 (2008)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2008
doi: 10.1242/jeb.021345
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The functional significance of the lower temporal bar in Sphenodon punctatus

Vicky Schaerlaeken1,*, Anthony Herrel1,2, Peter Aerts1 and Callum F. Ross3

1 Laboratory of Functional Morphology, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerpen, Belgium
2 Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
3 Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA


Figure 1
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  		Fig. 1. Lateral view on the skull of Sphenodon punctatus (top) and Plocederma stellio (bottom). Note how the major difference between the two skulls is the absence of the lower temporal bar in P. stellio. Arrow indicates the lower temporal bar in S. punctatus.

 

Figure 2
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  		Fig. 2. Graph illustrating the mass of the external adductor for a given cranial length in lizards from three different families (agamids, scincids and geckos; closed circles) and Sphenodon punctatus (open circles). Note how S. punctatus has a significantly smaller jaw adductor for its cranial length than the lizards examined. Data include both masses from Gorniak et al. (Gorniak et al., 1982Go) and newly obtained data by dissection of an adult male specimen.

 

Figure 3
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  		Fig. 3. Graph illustrating the differences in bite force between Sphenodon punctatus (closed circles) and agamid lizards (open circles). Note how bite forces are significantly lower in S. punctatus compared with agamid lizards.

 

Figure 4
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  		Fig. 4. Bar diagram illustrating differences in feeding behavior between Sphenodon punctatus (closed bar) and an agamid lizard (Plocederma stellio; open bar) feeding on the same prey (mealworm). Note how both the duration of a single transport cycle (TCD, transport cycle duration; F1,28=25.29; P<0.01) and the transport stage duration (TSD; F1,28=6.01; P=0.02) are significantly larger in S. punctatus. The duration of a single swallowing cycle (SCD) and the duration of the swallowing stage (SSD), by contrast, are not different between species (P>0.5).

 

Figure 5
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  		Fig. 5. Representative gape profile of prey transport in Sphenodon punctatus and Pogona vitticeps eating a mealworm. Note how the transport stage duration in S. punctatus is significantly longer than in P. vitticeps (1440 vs 237 m s–1, respectively) and consists of a greater number of cycles. Note also the difference in the scale of the two x-axes. Data for P. vitticeps were taken from Schaerlaeken et al. (Schaerlaeken et al., 2008Go).

 

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© The Company of Biologists Ltd 2008